By Jon Queally U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is facing widespread criticism for his comment that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden—increasingly seen by the American public as a heroic figure for exposing…

"Joe the Plumber": "Your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights." (via The Political Carnival) "Joe the Plumber" (Sam Wurzelbacher, the not-plumber), wrote the following in response to the grieving parents of…

By Michael T. Klare via Tomdispatch.com In the 1980s, encountering regulatory restrictions and public resistance to smoking in the United States, the giant tobacco companies came up with a particularly effective strategy…

By Juan Cole Voting was abruptly extended from two days to three in Egypt's presidential election on Tuesday, apparently because of an unexpectedly low turnout. The contest pits Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, until…

Non-Hydro Renewables Pass Hydropower In United States (via Clean Technica) Originally published on the ECOreport. (Editor’s Note: it’s worth noting that the numbers below don’t include rooftop solar power, only utility-scale solar power plants.)…

‘Catastrophe’ Claim Adds Fuel to Methane Debate (via Climate Central) By Bobby Magill Follow @bobbymagill A Cornell University scientist's claims that oil and gas development is so harmful to the climate that…

By Barry Eisler 'Journalist' Argues In NY Times That Publishing Decisions Should Ultimately Be Made By Government (via Techdirt) Glenn Greenwald spends the last third of his excellent new book, "No Place…

Onshore Wind Is The Cheapest Electricity Generation Option In Europe (via Clean Technica) Originally published on Renew Economy. The falling cost of renewables is not news to those who have paid attention…

(By Tom Engelhardt via Tomdispatch.com) Who could forget? At the time, in the fall of 2002, there was such a drumbeat of “information” from top figures in the Bush administration about the secret Iraqi…

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin is signaling that Pope Francis in his visit to Bethlehem on Sunday will strongly support the right of Palestinians to a sovereign state. Implicitly, Pope…

Pakistan’s First Solar Power Park Inaugurated, Will Be One Of The Biggest In World After Completion (via Clean Technica) Pakistan’s first large-scale solar power project, the Quaid-e-Azam Solar Park project, was recently…

(A conversation on economic democracy with Tom Malleson via OUP) How do we address the problem of inequality in capitalist societies? Tom Malleson, the author of After Occupy: Economic Democracy for the…

(By Juan Cole) In Benghazi on Monday morning, fighting resumed between the "Libyan National Army" forces of Col. Khalifa Hifter and fundamentalist extremists. The latter fired rockets at the Benina military airport…

(By Sarah Lazare) Amnesty International report on global torture exposes inhumane acts perpetrated by United States Thirty years after ratifying the UN Convention Against Torture, the U.S. government has dodged accountability for…

Qatar to end sponsorship system for foreign workers (via AFP) Qatar, host of the 2022 football World Cup, said Wednesday it will abolish its controversial sponsorship system for foreign workers, whose treatment…

Picture This: U.S. Cities Under 12 feet of Sea Level Rise (via Climate Central) By Climate Central Maps are one way to understand what collapse of West Antarctic glaciers could eventually mean. Photos show it…

(By Lauren McCauley) The 150 million Americans routinely exposed to toxic air as a result of oil and gas drilling need better protection from their government, demanded a coalition of 64 environmental…

(By Juan Cole) Turkey's Public Workers Union Confederation announced a one-day strike to demand better worker safety and political protests have broken out Friday in a number of Turkish cities over deaths…

NSA is accused of sneaking backdoors into hardware exports (via The Inquirer) Glenn Greenwald has accused the US National Security Agency (NSA) of inserting backdoors for surveillance purposes into servers being exported…

Rising Numbers of Palestinian Children Subjected to Solitary Confinement (via PRWeb) A new report from Defense for Children International Palestine (DCI-Palestine) finds that in 21.4 percent of cases documented in 2013, children…

(By Catherine Shakdam) Early last week political activists affiliated with Bahrain’s opposition groups delivered a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki moon calling for his office to take a stand against…

(By Juan Cole) Major political ideas and philosophies are complex and ambiguous, not straightforward. American conservatism is an alliance of economic conservatives and cultural conservatives. Economic conservatives are champions of entrepreneurs and…

West Antarctic ice sheet collapse 'unstoppable', says NASA (via AFP) Ice is melting in the western Antarctic at an "unstoppable" pace, scientists said Monday, warning that the discovery holds major consequences for…

(By Robert Sharp) As Yemen enters the post-National Dialogue Conference period, theory and practice are colliding; the constitutional referendum will take place in June followed by hopefully credible presidential and parliamentary elections.…

(By Haifaa G. Khalafallah) Revolutions or coups seeking to change modern Egypt, whether in 1919 or 1952, never challenged the familiar patterns of power relations, that is to say, their political culture.…

"John Oliver hosts a mathematically representative climate change debate, with the help of special guest Bill Nye the Science Guy, of course." John Oliver LastWeekTonight: "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO):…

(By Michael G. Roskin) With a Congressional committee about to seize on the Benghazi question (as part of the 2014 election campaign), some previously unasked but basic questions should come before the…

(By Juan Cole) The Latin Patriarch in Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, has said that Israeli squatter attacks on and desecration of Christian churches has poisoned the atmosphere in advance of Pope Francis's planned…

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Interior Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan praised the workers and supporters of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) for demonstrating a “sense of responsibility” during the party’s rally in the capital…

New Study Links California Drought to Climate Change and Burning of Fossil Fuels (via Desmogblog) Sat, 2014-05-10 09:07Chris Rose California, widely considered the U.S. state that most promoted the American Dream, may…

(By Sarah Lazare) A Pakistani official on Thursday slammed the CIA's fake vaccination drive in 2011 for fueling distrust of polio eradication campaigns and driving "attacks on polio workers" as the country…

(By Pratap Chatterjee via Tomdispatch) Enemies, innocent victims, and soldiers have always made up the three faces of war. With war growing more distant, with drones capable of performing on the battlefield…

(By Robert Mason) The current foreign policy tensions between Iran and the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) pivot around Iran's nuclear programme, ideology (the relative balance between revolutionary/resistance ideology and…

The National Climate Assessment Says We’re in Trouble. This Chart Shows Why. (via Moyers & Company) This animated chart from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences shows the amount of…

PROOF! Conservatives and CEOs Really ARE Evil Psychopaths (via Americans Against The Tea Party) Have you ever wondered why today’s conservatives never seem make any sense? Turns out that what we’ve always…

How Myanmar’s government is making violence between Muslims and Buddhists worse (via GlobalPost) MEIKHTILA, Myanmar — “For three days,” Khine recalls, “our town was hell.” As the 32-year-old waitress tells it, the…

Climate Change in the U.S. in 8 Compelling Charts (via Climate Central) By Brian Kahn Follow @blkahn The newly released National Climate Assessment spans 30 chapters with thousands of references on how…

Louie Gohmert: Constitution only protects Americans who ‘cling to God and guns’ (via Raw Story ) Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) recently asserted that the U.S. Constitution only applied to people “who cling…

US Supreme Court: First Amendment is Only For Christians, Upholds State-Sponsored Prayer (via Americans Against The Tea Party) Welcome to the theocracy! Monday morning was a dark day for America. The Supreme…

(By Pippa Holloway) Nearly six million Americans are prohibited from voting in the United States today due to felony convictions. Six states stand out: Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Virginia. These…

Egypt Investing Big In Solar Energy, Announces $1 Billion Investment (via Clean Technica) The new Egyptian government apparently sees solar energy as being a key part of the country’s future, based on…

Solar & Global Politics, & Why Ukraine & Qatar Are Critical Hubs There (via Clean Technica) Originally published on SolarWakeup.By Yann Brandt Solar may be a small portion of energy production globally but…

(By Juan Cole) Condoleezza Rice on Saturday pulled out of giving the commencement address at Rutgers University after professor and student protests. Rutgers historian Professor Rudy Bell argued that while it would…

(By Scott Kaufman) Alabama’s chief justice: Buddha didn’t create us so First Amendment only protects Christians (via Raw Story ) Speaking at the Pastor for Life Luncheon, which was sponsored by Pro-Life…

(By Emma Sinclair-Webb @esinclairwebb ) With a reported 39,000 police officers and 50 water cannon vehicles, plentiful supplies of teargas, and a complete shutdown of the public transport system in the city,…

(By Gregory Harms) Aside from the occasional cross-border violence between Gaza and Israel, Hamas, which governs the coastal strip, has received little attention in the press over the last few years. Because…

Reform Movement leader Rabbi Rick Jacobs has signaled that the Union of Reform Judaism could consider dropping out of the Conference of Presidents in response to yesterday’s vote to reject membership to…

(By Joel Migdal) The unity agreement announced last week between Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organization drew swift, negative reactions from Israel, including suspending its participation in the U.S.-sponsored peace talks. Israel…